Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Review

Good Points
The sharpness and colour transmission of this lens is quite amazing considering its entry level price. It converts your Canon DSLR into a top notch portrait camera.

Bad Points
It needs an image-stabilized version to really compete with the F 2.8 Canon IS short zoom lens--which costs 12x as much, nevertheless will outshoot this lens in low light due to image stabilization attributes

General Comments
The 50/1.8 must be a slight embarrassment to Canon, they have produced an exceptional lens, esp. when you stop it down to mid ranges (F 4 to F 8) for contrast, sharpness and color saturation. All this for $USD100!!. It is better than the Canon kit lens on your entry level DSLR and produces images with the pleasing isolation of shallow depth of field when shooting wide open that the kit lens can't do. The creative control also includes the short tele effects on the APS-C smaller chips, good but not great bokeh, and near-macro close ups. I recommend you spend the money and re-discover what your camera can really do.